


After the Storm

by sleep_deprived_sociopath



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-The Reichenbach Fall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-10
Updated: 2013-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-04 06:59:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1077962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleep_deprived_sociopath/pseuds/sleep_deprived_sociopath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been three years. John Watson ran but, in the end, he knew he had to come back. Even if it was to a gravestone.<br/>Sherlock never truly understood the consequences of the fall at St. Bart's. Maybe it was time someone showed him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> This a simple one shot. I requested on Tumblr a song and a pairing for me to write. They sent me After the Storm by Mumford and Sons (and I suggest you listen to it while you are reading).  
> Hope you enjoy!  
> Comments are appreciated, my beautiful people.

****

  


**After the Storm**

Sherlock’s breath was fast in and out of his lungs. Fixing his shirt collar, he entered the cemetery. He walked through graves and grass, a path pretty well known for him at this point. 

He saw the black tombstone in the horizon. His shoes made the characteristic sound of stones touching stones, and such sound reminded him of John. An acute pain on his chest made itself known. Because that’s what they were, right? Stone touching stone. A pair of hard, beaten hearts who randomly stroke each other while everyone else continued on living. Two little pieces of gravel. Sherlock shook his head, as to disperse another painful thought.

He looked up. It was starting to rain. They said a storm would come in tomorrow. But, as Sherlock well knew, it could start at any minute. Stupid, boring meteorologists that couldn’t even do their job correctly. 

He continued his path, now raining heavily, fixing the so much hated deerstalker on top of his black curls. As he reached the tombstone, something interesting was brought to his attention. A single white rose stood at the bottom of his supposed deceased name. It was fresh, one day. The stem was still green as emerald. Maybe 12 hours.

Drawn on the grass, one unique shape of one pair of shoes in size and shape made his hands start to tremble. 

  


                                                   *

_12 hours before_

Three years. It had took him three years to come back. Three years of running and hiding, of dreadful places to sleep. Of horrible meals and terrifying dreams. 

John Watson walked the gravel to the resting place of his late friend. 

 _Friend._ It seemed wrong as something to represent their relationship. He was never a friend. More, so much more he was that there would never be a word to fully comprehend it. So much more… 

Two tombstones away, John’s eyes were already clouded. His leg started to complain once more. It had been three years since it came back. After Sherlock… John still couldn’t say it until this day. His mind reviewed that day second by second and he still couldn’t accept it. The phone, the shot, the fall…

John reached the tombstone.

He was now with a fist on his chest, trying to hold the pain inside. All the pain, all the immense pain of what was behind in time. That man, that brilliant, amazing, fantastic man who brought John’s world to its knees, Under these stupid, hard stones who could never be worthy of holding such treasure. His desire was to break it, stone by stone, destroy this obvious yet stupid monument to the greatest man who ever lived. 

His hand finally uncovered John’s intents. A pale white rose fell at the bottom of the tombstone, a mere tribute to him. John’s voice quivered the first words he said in years:

 _Please don’t be dead. Please, don’t. I never truly thought God would be as great as to take you away. Just prove it to me. Prove it on your flamboyant thoughts I nearly could ever understand. Prove me I was right. For once_ -John whispered- _let me be right._

  


_*_

Sherlock knew. He had been here. He left  _it_  there. 

Sherlock took the pale flower on his hand. His knees fell to the ground. Sobbings uncontrollably came out of his mouth, leaving him breathless and weak, as if the pain drained every single bit of strength he had. He could not exactly tell how long he stood in the rain. Perhaps an hour considering the water that drenched his coat. The wind threw the rain even more vigorously into his face. He could not see what surrounded him. Rain and tears mingled on his face. All he wanted was to fall and live no more. 

But the sound of gravel still echoed his ears. And the sight of a unique pair of shoes shook him to life.

  


                                                         *

As he entered the cemetery, John’s eyes were already flooded. The path to the black familiar tombstone seemed even more difficult than it was on his previous visit. 

Last night, thoughts were uncontrollable and painful. Despair and desire to a closure brought him back there. He needed to leave. Once more run and run. Let the corpse of his bounded soul to rot beneath those dreadful stones.

Looking up, John cursed his life but, in the end, he left all anger to God.

Rain poured and the storm was at its climax. The path was no longer clearly visible. He stumbled between tombstones until he reached something with his hands to secure him to the ground. A stone angel that guarded a man in front of Sherlock’s grave. The man slowly turned and John’s first glimpse of him was the white flower on his hand.

  


                                                    *

 _\- John?-_ He asked, eyes trembling with some sort of emotion yet unknown to Sherlock.

John. There he stood, alive. Broken, but alive. 

  


                                                   *

It were the eyes. That’s how John knew it was him. The galaxies he stood alone days trying to remember. John could not move. He could not breathe correctly. But yet he murmured.

-  _The reason, the only reason I hold was you. To see this. To have seen it. I prayed, everyday._

John’s voice began to recover with the anger that now boiled his blood.

_\- I PRAYED EVERYDAY FOR THIS! THREE YEARS, THREE YEARS, SHERLOCK HOLMES!_

Tears came down his face. The anger made him fell to his knees once more, spasms rushing through his whole body, in front of the man he took for dead.

 _\- I thought I was going to die alone. Alone. Like I was in the beginning.-_ he continued.

John clenched the man’s coat and pulled his body against it, hiding his face on Sherlock’s neck. It was him, after all. The scent was still the same he tried so many times to recover from the old long trench coat John was wearing.

 _\- Thank you. -_ said the man.

It was him. Sherlock.

  


                                                *

There they stood still, both on the gravel, until the storm passed and the rain stopped. The clenched fists of John still took a hold of Sherlock’s coat. Sherlock’s arms surrounded John’s body, holding him, while his head rested on the other man’s shoulder. Both started to wake up from the inertia the shock of the reunion bestowed upon their bodies. 

Two pairs of eyes lost themselves on each other once more. New eyes, it must be said. For war changed both. They realized alone was no more. That pain had ended. 

Bodies entwined, John’s lips began a search for their partners. Eyes closed with pure relief, four nearly unheard words fell of Sherlock’s lips before they met its destination. 

 


End file.
